This invention relates to a container for food items, such as French fries, which are commonly scooped out of a storage receptacle by means of and into a carton that is placed in a bag that is then carried from the fast food restaurant by the customer.
Such cartons as have been previously used for this purpose have had no covers, with the result that the fries rapidly get cold and commonly fall out of the carton and find their way into the bottom of the bag, and are thereupon wasted or quickly become cold and/or the customer gets aggravated.
It is an important object of the invention to provide an improved scoop type carton for French fries, the improved carton having a cover that insures that the French fries stay in the carton.
It is a further object to provide such an improved carton that will keep the French fries hotter for longer periods of time.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide such an improved carton in which the French fries can be reheated at home, should the customer so desire.
It is still another object to provide such a carton that costs little, if any, more than cartons heretofore in use.
Other objects and advantages will appear hereinafter.
A patentability search hereon revealed the following U.S. Patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Date Inventor ______________________________________ 3,630,430 December 28, 1971 Struble 3,877,632 April 15, 1975 Steel 4,185,764 January 29, 1980 Cote 4,267,955 May 19, 1981 Struble 4,410,129 October 18, 1983 Wischusen, III ______________________________________
Struble U.S. Pat. No. 3,630,430 discloses a scoop-type open ended carton that is stored flat and is capable of being transformed to three-dimensional scoop form with one hand.
Steel discloses scoop-type carton that has portions that provide legs when the carton is transformed from flat three-dimensional form. The legs permit the carton to be stood up. There is no cover.
Cote teaches a flat, folded carton, open at the top, and having a snap-up bottom for erection into a conical hollow container. The bottom is octagonal.
Struble U.S. Pat. No. 4,267,955 essentially teaches a modified blank layout for use in making the open ended carton of Struble '430, to maximize the number of cartons made per unit of material stock.
Wischusen, III discloses an open-ended collapsible paperboard container constructed from a minimal amount of paperboard.
These prior patents do not teach scoop type cartons with covers for fast food items, such as French fries.